Bush, Defiant and Reflective

During his farewell news conference this morning, President Bush promised not to wallow in self-pity. But the line between pride and pity is thin.  Bush seemed to want to convey the message that he did the best with what he was given.  He conceded minor mistakes, like a Mission Accomplished banner that was strung across an aircraft carrier. But, on more important questions, he was blithe and dismissive.

He rebuked the Washington Post's Mike Abramowitz, who asked whether America's standing in the world suffered during his administration.  "Only the elites," he said, have such criticism.  (This just isn't true.)

He noted that he entered office to a recession [a small one, having to do with the collapse of the dot.com bubble] and ended with a recession [the biggest recession in 50 years, having to do with a catastrophic breakdown of economic policy and the market].

On Katrina, Bush erupted. "Don't tell me the response was slow when 30,000 people were pulled off roofs. When I hear people who say, 'the federal response was slow, what are they going to say to those chopper driver's?"  There was no mention of the tens of thousands of people who were stranded in New Orleans without food, water or shelter, as if judging the federal response did not incorporate those failings.

He responded to a question about his failure to executive his policies successfully by saying that "hard things don't happen overnight."

He repeated his contention that the problem with the outcome of the immigration debate in Congress was that "people think that Republicans don't like immigrants. That might be fair or unfair," he said, but it was destructive.

A side note: Bush said that President-elect Obama has not asked him to request the rest of the TARP money from Congress and hinted that he believes that Obama ought to ask him.